This article is written by Avinash Scrapwala, a fellow enthusiast of Hindi movie music and a regular contributor to this blog. This article is meant to be posted in atulsongaday.me. If this article appears in sites like lyricstrans.com and ibollywoodsongs.com etc then it is piracy of the copyright content of atulsongaday.me and is a punishable offence under the existing laws.

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Yesterday, 25th June was the birth anniversary of actor Raghuveer Yadav and we wish him a very happy birthday and a healthy and peaceful life ahead. (In the anniversary list on our blog his birth date is mentioned as Jan 1st, however almost all of the internet sites that I came across during search for his biography have mentioned 25th June’1957 as his date of birth. So now I only have doubt about the year of his birth if it is correct, the reason is mentioned in the write up below.

Many of us movie Hindi Movie lovers are aware of Raghuveer Yadav and his multifaceted talent. I cannot exactly tell when my first interaction was watching his perform was but going by the chronology I think it was his TV serial ‘Mungerilal Ke Haseen Sapne’ which left an indelible mark on my mind. Later on, so far, I think I had watched very few of his movies, not even the newer ones too.

But still Raghuveer Yadav is one such name that brings many things to mind – unmatchable talent, his rustic-but so natural-and innocent acting which gets him immersed into the character and the one watching it gets involved so much so that when he came out of the movie hall he came with this character (which ever he is playing) all around oneself and it take time before one comes to normal after that. His acting does not only shake your mind and leave its imprints but leaves its magic on your ‘soul’ that is how I would like to put it in my words.

A story of simplicity, struggle, and an extra-ordinary achievement coming from an ordinary background. A living saga of dedication, hard work and immense talent. So, I think, to know why Raghuveer Yadav is what he is today, one must learn about his formative years mainly, which evolve him into being a ‘living legend’ today. I am approaching this post in a different manner without mentioning the name of the movies he has acted till now. Because as he himself has mentioned that his best is yet to come and whatever he has done till now, he feels, could have been done much better than that. As an ‘actor’ he thinks, he cannot achieve what he wants to achieve in this ‘single life’ and needs ‘one (or may be more)’ lives to achieve that. The journey is on. . .

Raghuveer Yadav was born on in Jabalpur District of Madhya Pradesh on 25th June, 1957. His father was a farmer in a small village near Jabalpur. Among five siblings – three sisters and two brothers – he was the second after his elder sister. Since his childhood he was fond of singing even though none from his family was even remotely related with singing. Given the background of living around farms and learning in a small village school where the classes were conducted below a tree and sitting on the wooden planks, it was natural for him to get attracted towards the nature and maybe he developed that habit of observing the happenings around since those days. He used to take his cattle or grazing around and travelling bullock-carts.

As he was not interested much in studies he somehow completed his education till Higher Secondary (as told by himself in his interview in ‘Guftagoo’ on Rajya Sabha TV). When he was asked to learn Science in Higher Secondary, in apprehension of failing in exams he planned to run away from home and ‘fortunately’ so there was a person in his village who used to run-away from home at regular intervals and had become a ‘professional bhagouda’. Raghuveer run away with him and they reach at the person’s Uncle. After the money stolen from (his father’s pocket) was finished Raghuveer’s friend returned back to his village. However Raghuveer decided to stay back and joined a ‘Parsi theatre group’ in those years and started singing there. In Parsi theatre the ability to sing was a very necessary qualification to get any work there.

Well in those years (1967 as per him i.e. why I think his year of birth should be earlier than 1957, if we consider he ran away from home when he was doing higher secondary.). He got the job of singing in between the intervals during the change of ‘scenes’. He used to get Rs.2.50 per day or even Rs.1.00/1.50 sometimes then and thus had to be without food many times. When the survival became difficult and the singing opportunities were getting reduced he has to take on ‘acting’ at the behest of the owner of the group. There he also started learning, writing and speaking ‘Urdu’.

After working with this ‘play group’ for almost six years and travelling through various places for doing plays, Raghuveer finally come to Lucknow and started doing ‘Puppet’ shows. And after that he landed in Delhi and joined the National School of Drama. And, from here under the baton of Ibrahim Alkazi he learned and learned a lot about theatre, set designing, craft, music and singing, and his journey till reaching here had already given him lot of insights on ‘human life’ too.

He was a part of the NSD Repertory when he got his first opportunity to work in movies and thus his entry in movies happened with ‘Massey Saheb-1985’, which fetch him two International awards too. He was awarded the Silver Peacock for best acting at the 11th International Film Festival of India in 1987.

He always wanted to be a singer and has a passion for music. He plays many instruments and even builds some on his own. Singing and Music has remained his strong passion and that is why in trying and testing times or in depression he always resorted to music which gives him peace and satisfaction. During his interviews he has mentioned that the music during the ‘sixties’ was his favourite, however so far he didn’t mention any of the Bollywood songs which he liked most. It will be interesting to know which songs his favourite during those years have been and which motivated him if any. Or may be since he was mainly attracted towards theatre, the poetry-based songs and/or folk songs remained his main attraction. He also fondly remembers his days of theatre in ‘Delhi’ and all his friends there whom he missed a lot. (I would request readers to watch and listen to his singing of ‘Delhi’ and ‘Majnu’ in his interviews which is very touching).

Given the hardships he faced in life and reaching the heights where he is today cannot be summed up in one article here. It required a detailed biography which I am sure will be interesting and inspirational for the many who wants to achieve a ‘purpose’ in life.

Today I present a song from the movie ‘Aasmaan Se Giraa’ (1991). This film is directed by Pankaj Parashar for ‘Children’s Film Society of India’. Pankaj Parashar also wrote the story and screenplay of this movie. Neena Bhatnagar was the additional screenplay writer of this movie. It had Raghuveer Yadav, Abhishek, Kalpana Iyer, Rakesh Shrivastava, Sunil Ranade, Navtej Hundal, Ranjit Shah, Kurush Deboo, DK Mathur, DN Shaily and Sanjeev Shah. Sheeba, Tisca Arora, Rajesh Puri, Anupam Kher, Sridevi, Anil Kapoor and Amjad Khan make ‘guest appearances’ in this movie. Commentary in the movie was done by Shaban Azmi. Anubhav Sinha was the Chief Assistant Director of this movie, and V Ramesh Babu was the Chief Assistant Editor. Editing for this movie was done by Afaque Husain. Choreography of this movie was done by Vijay Oscar, Bhupendra Singh, Pankaj Parashar. Bijon Das Gupta was the Art Director of this movie. Raghuveer Yadav, Shailendra Singh, Suresh Wadkar, Kavita Krishnamurthy, Hema and Abhishek gave their voices to the songs in this movie. Kamlesh Pandey was the lyricist for this movie and he also wrote the dialogues for this movie. Music for this movie was composed by Louis Banks.

It was passed by the Censor Board on 30.08.1991 (but seems to be released in theatres on 04.09.1992 as most of the internet sources mentioned it). The following synopsis about this movie and brief about the Director of this movie Pankaj Parashar has been taken as given with the YouTube link (Ultra Kids Zone, posted on 06.08.2016) of this movie;

A young prince is trained for a time when he will grow up to become king. The lonely boy is frustrated at being kept secluded while being taught the art of statesmanship by great scholars. One day he finds a strange little man from another planet. He names his new friend Trishanku and the two exchange views about their own worlds. Trishankhu is homesick and wishes to return back to his planet. The two-escape trying to find ways for Trishankhu to go back. On their journey they develop a deep bonding and it is hard for Trishankhu to let go.

This heartwarming film by popular TV and film director Pankaj Parashar stars a galaxy of Bollywood stars in guest appearances including Sridevi, Amjad Khan, Anil Kapoor and Anupam Kher.

Pankaj Parashar A reputed director of films and TV series. He is an alumnus of FTII, Pune. His diploma film ‘Malfunction’ for the institute won him a Filmfare Award for Best Documentary. Since then he has held the directorial chair for many reputed films most notable being ‘Jalwa’ (1987) and ‘Chaal Baaz’ (1989) with the latter winning him another Filmfare award. He also made the immensely popular TV serial ‘Karamchand’, India’s first detective series in 1985. Currently Pankaj divides his time making ad films and working on his next feature film

I remember having watched this movie on ‘Doordarshan’ may be in 1994-95, and since then I could not forget it. I was searching for its songs since many years now and particularly I liked the other song of this movie very much and I and my cousins used to discuss about it and sing it whenever we used to get together. The movie also has some beautiful locations of Rajasthan and this could be the other factor why it is close to my heart as I was in Rajasthan then from 1989-1996 🙂 though I watched the movie on TV during visit to hometown in Maharashtra.

Let us now enjoy the today’s wonderful-philosophical song, sung by Raghuveer Yadav and Master Abhishek, which I sincerely hope you too will like and enjoy.